Everyone in the pits calls him Lamb.
Lethe knows what the name means. He’s seen what this place does to softness. He tends the wounded, keeps his head down, and survives the whims of Demos — the pit lord who owns him.
Then they bring in the beast. Zazyrus has killed handlers. Broken guards. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t submit, doesn’t bend.
He is rage made flesh, and Lethe is sent into his cage with nothing but a satchel of medical supplies and the stubborn belief that every creature deserves a gentle hand. Zazyrus doesn’t kill him.
What grows between them in the dark is something neither has experienced before. Something Demos notices. Something he tries to use.
He should have remembered that sometimes the lamb is a wolf in disguise. And that the most dangerous thing in any cage isn’t always the one with claws.
